As with Kenyans, Ugandans speak good English almost without exception. So, the policemen at their station that I asked to camp next to welcomed me, brought a bucket of water, insisted I “sluice away” my “heavy grime”, and warned me of the baboons. The screaming of these pests woke me from the tree branches over my tent and I rode onward in the cool morning, reaching Jinja just as the afternoon heat was peaking. I pitched up at busy campsite with a lawn overlooking the adolescent stretch of the White Nile shortly after it spills out of Lake Victoria. The waters idling downstream here are the same ones that I drank copiously and straight from the murky, silty river in Sudan to quench my thirst in the desert heat months ago.

The hostel was largely full of twenty-something American missionaries. Uganda attracts large numbers of short-term (university holidays) messengers of Christ. It’s a pleasant country to visit on holiday and if the collection plate is able to part-fund a trip then it would be hard to refuse. Uganda is a stable, beautiful and (sometimes-shockingly) conservatively Christian country. Last year’s Anti Homosexuality Bill (also known as the “Kill the Gays Bill”) narrowly avoided instituting the death penalty for homosexual acts but did however prescribe life imprisonment and included a clause in which Ugandans in same-sex relationships overseas should be extradited home for punishment.

The crowd of 50 or so mostly-Texan missionaries were almost universally female, overweight, sporting recently-braided hair and suffering from sunburned seams of scalp between their braids. Loud and apparently unaware of others, they filled the bar and some even performed hilariously laboured aerobics on the lawn to 1990s hits by the Spice Girls and the Venga Boys. I heard one (indeed, her volume was impossible to ignore) yell across the bar to her friend engaged in conversation with a stranger: “Hey Michelle! Are you flirtin’ or convertin’ over there?”

Needless to say, I stayed only one night.

Man transporting plantains near Kampala, Uganda

Tea plantations between Kampala and Fort Portal, Uganda

The following morning saw me across the river, over rolling hills neatly contoured by tea plantations, through the virgin greenness of the Mabera forest and towards Kampala. I bought avocadoes and short manzano bananas (known locally as “little fingers”) from roadside villagers and sat with the vendors while eating my fruit salad. A matatu (minibus) narrowly missed me when it veered off the road to avoid an oncoming truck overtaking on a blind corner.

In Kampala I met my friend Archie who has worked there for a coffee exporter for the last two years. We enjoyed an indulgent few days catching up after three years, playing squash, eating well and drinking the odd beer. Kampala is a sprawl of development creeping over seven hills and has now more than picked itself up after suffering as merciless Amin’s luckless plaything in the 1970s. The Asian traders have returned, westerners have poured in, business is booming and modernity has arrived in spades.

Swampy, humid air slowed my departure from the city. The grotesque maribu stork - an ugly bird over a meter tall – haunted the rubbish tips on the outskirts and wheeled casually overhead with its three meter wingspan. The well-surfaced road led through a corridor of almost continuous habitation and I followed it, ignoring the omnipresent shouts of “mzungu, MZUNGU!” (white man) from village children. Another police station served as a campsite before the route became hillier and a little less thickly populated. The surly chief eyed me suspiciously as I pitched my tent, probably influenced by the headline screamed across the front page of the paper he was reading: “MZUNGU TYCOON GRABS MP’S WIFE!” The all-night bender that he and his colleagues partook in seemed to wipe his memory and he shook my hand gravely, bleary-eyed and reeking of liquor, when I left at dawn.

The road leading up to Nkruba crater Lake, Uganda

Through thick mist and under darkening clouds I made my way into Fort Portal close to Uganda’s western border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ducking into a hostel in the nick of time, I avoided a tumultuous rainstorm heralding the arrival of the rainy season. Here I caught up with the Scottish Motorcyclists who I’d met in Egypt, Ethiopia and then Kenya. We had a birthday to celebrate so were carried into town with four of us on one motorbike (three seated and myself piggybacked on the hindmost rider) and danced to an awful selection of East Africa’s largely-dismal pop music.

We made an excursion to a volcanic crater lake not far from Fort Portal for a couple of nights. Lake Nkuruba was simply stunning: about 100m across, surrounded by steep-sided, dense forest, and empty but for us and a couple of troops of vervet and colobus monkeys. Sadly, this short and enjoyable break from cycling had to end and I saddled up again for a fast ride south.

A night camped in Queen Elizabeth National Park hoping its famous tree-climbing lions were sleepy; children chorusing “how are you!” repeatedly – more a mantra than a question; buffalo grazing near the road; baboons swaggering territorially back and forth across the tarmac; a mud track short cut with vast banana plantations – a sea of massive, drooping leaves; camping in a nunnery during a great thunder storm; looking out over the forest mountains wallowing languidly in lugubrious morning mist; my Made-in-Kenya tire blowing out after a little less than 1,000 miles; far-reaching views of terraced hills reminding me of cycling with friends in Nepal what seems like a lifetime ago.

Dugout canoes on Lake Bunyonyi, Uganda

Terraced farms, central Rwanda

The small city of Kabale is the jumping off point for mountain gorilla trekking. Regretfully, the $500-per-hour price tag caused me to settle for a rest day on nearby Lake Bunyonyi instead. A tortuously steep mud track up and over a pass deposited me at the lakeside. Sitting at almost 2,000m above sea level, thought to be 900m deep, and home to numerous inlets and islands, Bunyonyi is a startlingly beautiful spot. It attracts most of the overland truck tours that ply the route from Nairobi (or even Cairo) to Cape Town with their captive passengers whisked brusquely from one place of interest to the next. Obviously, I have chosen a slightly different mode of transport to these pacey, money-spinning tours and my ethos of travel probably differs too. However, I finally noticed something I’ve been slowly grasping for a while. When people see me and learn what I’m doing, tourists and local people alike, they tend to react quizzically. It’s no longer so often: “that’s exciting…sounds like fun…I’m so jealous.” It’s now more often: “what did you say? How many years now? Why on earth? What could have possibly possessed you? A whole year to go, really? Don’t you have any friends?”

All the same, my stubbornness props me up and my devotion to a self-imposed task bears me on. So, on I went…past the 30,000-mile mark and towards Rwanda.

Onto the right hand side of the road and into this tiny nation with its abundance of natural beauty. Le Pays des Mille Collines (the country of a thousand hills) at first glance seems not dissimilar to Uganda. Things are a little more rough around the edges, villagers wear slightly more ragged clothes and perhaps shout at foreigners slightly less. The Francophone (ex-Belgian colony) that I visited in 2006 has turned Anglophone and French is no longer taught in schools.

A long, winding climb though a steep-sided valley with tea fields on its floor carried me to a pass and thence briskly down into the capital; Kigali. I met with Robert and Jane (Ugandan friends of my cousin and uncle) who live here with their three young children. Before driving me to their suburban home, they took me on a quick tour of the city, taking in the view from the roof of the country’s tallest building (18 floors). Looking down over the hilly, rapidly expanding and modernising city, Robert pointed out various new developments and several swathes of slum-cleared land being prepared for future developments.

Detail of exhibition at Genocide Memorial Centre, Kigali, Rwanda

In the morning I took a journey into Rwanda’s haunted recent past. The Genocide Memorial Centre pulls no punches and the well-presented detailing of the causes, the event and the aftermath is surrounded by a sombre garden with mass graves containing the remains of 250,000 people.

I learned how there were 18 clans in Rwanda when the Belgians took over the colony from the Germans after the Great War. Tutsi and Hutu weren’t ethnicities or clans. They were classes; largely forgotten social standings depending on wealth: the Belgians decreed that the ruling class (every family with 10 or more cows) - about 15% of the population - were Tutsi. The colonial rulers artificially configured ethnicity into the equation, introduced identification cards, and effectively split the population. When Rwanda gained independence in 1962 the now-despised Tutsi’s were heavily persecuted. There were several smaller scale massacres of Tutsi in the early 1990s.

Family-donated photos of victims of the genocide, Kigali, Rwanda

The final violence, when it came, as the world foresaw it would, in 1994 was horrific. 1,000,000 people were killed – often with crude or blunt implements – in less than three months. Hundreds of thousands more fled to neighbouring countries. Rwanda blames the UN, and Kofi Annan has since admitted fault on its behalf for not sending an intervening force. It is widely acknowledged as an atrocity that could have been prevented. Part of me, however, can’t help thinking that outsiders (who admittedly were responsible for fostering the conditions in which the violence found an outlet) can’t be blamed entirely for the latent lack of humanity that poured exultantly and terribly forth when the floodgates opened.

Before being murdered, many victims were tortured. Their tendons were cut first so they couldn’t run away. Some were thrown down pit latrines and rocks followed in their wake until their cries were silenced. Hutu men known to be HIV positive were encouraged to rape Tutsi women; and did so in their droves. If a man kills another man, or rapes and/or kills a woman, or murders a child, he has committed that crime. Whether he has the excuse of having been told to do so shouldn’t be the pivotal focus in the matter.

These black holes in the history of humanity beggar my belief.

Village girl south of Kigali, Rwanda

Village boys near Burundian Border, Rwanda

I thanked my kind hosts and left Kigali. Up and over hill after hill; Rwanda can be trying on a bike. In fairness, views of lush landscapes, unfolding further around every bend in the road more than compensate for the toil. I clung to the back of a truck for a couple of miles on one climb and was joined by two village men who, once holding on, switched to side saddle and perched on their cross bars rather than their seats. One of them fell backwards and clattered to the tarmac when the truck changed gear. His friend laughed so heartily that he soon lost his grip too.

School kids wandered to and fro along the road in their khaki shorts and shirts. Many reached out to touch my skin as I passed. I’m not sure what they were expecting but often they retracted their hands as if they’d received an electric shock.

A storm gathered as the day drew short and I began looking for somewhere flat to build my little canvas home. Following a footpath to a small village, I found a church and started pitching on the grass next to it as the first drops fell. Two kind village elders unlocked the building, led me inside and left me, padlocked in for my safety. I looked around at the 25x10m of dark concrete, ribbed with close-packed slabs of more concrete acting as pews. The cold, hard, concrete floor didn’t appeal so I opted for the altar and made my bed. The sonorous clatter of downpour on a corrugated metal roof ensued for eight hours. Lightening strobed behind the small, barred windows.

At 4am, a clutch of candle bearing devout came in for prayer. I pretended to sleep on for a while but a strange, mournful chant began and after 30 minutes I didn’t like what it was doing to my head so crept out acknowledging none but noticed by all.

Village children on road to Burundi, Rwanda

The storm’s still, chill aftermath soon cleared the strange wake up call from my mind. That day was one of the occasional ones where I long to not be a foreigner. I don’t long to be at home as such, but just to be less conspicuous. The continual shouts (even if they be greetings) at me because I am different; the total lack of privacy or a moment’s peace unless I play music through my headphones and close my eyes and forget about the crowd of ten or more stood closely packed around me; the manic intensity with which young boys scream ceaselessly for my attention and continue to do so until acknowledged, after which they continue cheering and shouting triumphantly as though they’ve achieved something great; the young men who kick into action on their single-speed Chinese bicycles when I pass them at my steady pace, and strain every muscle to overtake me – objective achieved, white man bettered, they pull in front of me and stop pedalling, thus treating me to a heady assault of body odour and the necessity to swerve suddenly and dangerously to avoid shunting them; the people who find me hidden in the trees at midday and beg unscrupulously for the simple lunch I’m eating that will not nearly replace all the calories I’ve burned that morning. All these things are, of course, to be expected and are part of my daily life. Kindness or intent has nothing to do with it. There’s never any malice, well, rarely. However, this barrage of tactless attention, on occasion, makes me long for an unpeopled desert or the happy facelessness of riding in a European country where I’m simply dismissed as another member of The Great Unwashed and of little interest to anyone.

That evening, after following the road south, weaving and bobbing over and along ridges of painstakingly cultivated hills, I camped with the chief’s permission on a grassy slope outside the “district office” building in a small village. One hour after I disappeared into my tent and closed the flap, the excited mass of children running around, shouting to nobody in particular that I am a foreigner, and tripping repeatedly on my guy ropes, finally dispersed. Not long after a crowd of 20-30 adults gathered outside the nearby building. Voices were raised and it seemed like everything being said was repeated two or three times, with increased excitement each time. From my aural spectator’s spot ten meters away I eventually realised it was s trial of sorts. The caning soon began. I counted the vicious swish and sickeningly sharp crack of well over 100 strokes before I stopped counting (but not flinching). There were a few breaks to apparently preach justice but I think also to give the person caning a rest from the exertion which caused him to grunt like a latter-day tennis player. The accused moaned pathetically, and eventually continuously; individual strokes no longer registering above the general pain he was in. The attendant crowd chattered and laughed all the while. I had to force myself not to intervene. It was not my business and the preceding day had been more than enough to remind me how much of a stranger I was in this land.

Sunrise over terraced hills, South Rwanda

Basic homes, Northern Burundi

At sunrise, glad to leave another site of strange nocturnal activity, I glided down towards a valley floor and plunged into soupy mist. Women emerged from the whiteness with the day’s supply of foraged firewood balanced on their heads only to be swallowed again shortly after I passed them.

A chocolate brown river marked the border with Burundi and I paid $40 for a three-day transit visa. So, the time press to pass through the (admittedly small) country and on into Tanzania within three days was on. I attacked a long slog of an ascent out of the valley with vigour. At the top I had a snack hidden in a coffee plantation, the variously red and green beans around me approaching readiness for harvest. Villagers greeted me almost politely with “bonjour Mzungu!” and I envisioned the reaction I’d receive if I went up to a black man in London and said “hello black man”.

Early afternoon I met some lycra-clad, racing bike-mounted Burundian cyclists out for a Saturday ride. I accompanied Emmerie, Jean, Jean-Paul, Sylvestre and “Le Docteur” towards the capital – Bujumbura. We passed densely forested Kibira National Park that was home to mountain gorillas before the civil war (1995-2003 Tutsi-Hutu based conflict). My new friends were shocked by the amount of shouts that accompanied our little peloton as we rode through hillside villages. I was more shocked at the way Burundian village cyclists clung, side saddle, to the back of trucks even when speeding downhill. Holding onto trucks is apparently illegal in Burundi and I saw a policeman give chase on foot behind a slowly climbing truck and bodily knock the accompanying cyclist to the floor then throw his bike down a rocky slope.

In a village where we stopped for cold drinks, and old beggar woman tried to ingratiate herself with me by rubbing her wrinkled forehead on my saddle to “bless” my bike. I considered the hours of perineal sweat I’d invested into the leather seat over the last three years and, filled with pity, abandoned my usual policy of never giving to beggars.

Finally, having ridden much further than I’d intended that day (despite my rush) we joined the rest of the Burundian Cycling Federation in a village bar. Beers flowed far too freely and we feasted on nyama choma (roast meat). The Minister for Sport was present (a keen cyclist himself) and I couldn’t help noticing the almost sarcastically theatrical sycophantism my companions displayed towards this surly, bald man.

Members of the Burundi Cycling Federation, Burundi

Darkness was approaching so we all mounted our bikes and I soon discovered why the rest of the cyclists had not got beyond this village. It was about 20 miles to Bujumbura and we sped lethally down 1,300m in altitude. Sweeping views of the city lumbering around the north tip of Lake Tanganyika threatened to distract but I managed, just barely, to keep my eyes on the road and not plunge down the mountainside.

That adrenalin-flooded descent was one of those moments completely antithetical to the aforementioned downbeat exhaustion with being foreign. I’d had a hard day, I’d made friends, I’d had plenty of beer and now I had that magical feeling of going somewhere unplanned that I don’t know with people I hardly know. The excitement of uncertainty and then the exhilarating surrender to life. Like giving up swimming against a current and letting a river sweep you away to uncertainty and the unknown. On so many levels, this is why I travel.

We swept euphorically into the humid city in failing light and set up camp at another bar for more beer and more meat. A big storm was once again brewing, electricity was palpable in the dense air and we sat outdoors in our sweat-encrusted clothes waiting for the clouds to burst. They did and we were drenched clean before retreating indoors.

I was physically and mentally exhausted (and very drunk) when I finally collapsed into the guest bedroom of Kunta. I had cycled far and earned the luxury of a late start in the morning while still being able to reach my deadline of exiting the country. However, a rest was not allowed as Christophe, Charte and Bosco arrived on bicycles at sunrise and hijacked me from the bottle of cold water I had recently started nursing on a soft sofa. We rode south, out of Bujumbura to a place known locally as “Stanley Livingstone”. A prominent rock stands on a hill here overlooking the lake. The two explorers carved their names onto it in 1871. Burundian’s claim that this is where Stanley found the missing Scottish missionary doctor-turned-explorer but in reality it is one of the many places they visited together in the time they travelled together after meeting in Ujiji, Tanzania. I relished this rock; this physical link with the past and the characters I’ve read so much about. I recall a similar feeling upon finding Stanley’s name graffitied onto a rock at Persepolis in Iran. Inspiring, intrepid vandal that he was.

"Livingstone Stanley 25-XI-1871, near Bujumbura, Burundi

We cycled back into the city, through it and out of its west flank. Onwards to the Congolese border post where men with bicycles heavily laden with bananas crossed freely back and forth. Back in town we had fresh fish and fat chips for lunch then a short bout of petanque before I had to wearily cycle out of town alone and chase my visa’s expiry. Sad to leave but with little time for reflection, I followed the lake southwards and camped on a village football field. Too tired to tolerate the attendant crowd of understandably curious children, I had the idea to address the oldest, most authoritative looking one (about 15 years). In simple halting French (as much for his benefit as due to my poor French) I explained that I was very tired and would really appreciate him taking charge of his underlings and herding them away. He leaped at the sudden appointment to a position of power with startling eagerness and started brutally slapping small children until they finally retired. I heard several more thwacks and power-happy shouts from the boy as I drifted off into a dead sleep.

Road into the mountains, Burundi

Day three. A border to reach and 80 miles to ride. I raced on along the lake, sometimes gathering a tail of squeaking, grinding, rusty bikes behind me whose riders were unable to overtake me on this particular day of necessary speed.

The road turned inland and launched into a steep, 1,000m climb in altitude that I hadn’t expected. However, shirt off and pouring sweat, I reached the town of Mubanda, got my passport stamped out of Burundi and pedalled a couple of mud road miles into a large area of no man’s land before making my tent on top of a hill just as the sun sank, golden and rewarding, behind the sublime mountainscape before me.

View from camping spot in no man's land after exiting Burundi

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Hello from Spain!. Kostras don´t forget you. Here, in Spain you have followers. When are you coming here?, and drink spanish beer?. We are preparing another trip through Norway next year. Cheers!!

Reply

Simon Bowes

28/10/2013 10:40:18 am

Another great blog Charlie and what fantastic progress you are making. Your travels in Uganda remind me of my visits to Kampala in the days of Idi Amin and so it is good to learn of happier times there now. Seeing your Ma and Pa on Saturday. Keep smiling! Simon

Reply

Rory Bate-Williams

29/10/2013 06:37:49 am

Wow! Absolutely amazing!

I'm now living in Beijing, which is where I last saw you!

Reply

will hillary

1/11/2013 08:16:02 am

Many congrats, Charlie, on passing the 30000 mile mark. Keep up the amazing effort!

Reply

Peter Hardy

3/11/2013 05:24:53 am

This makes me even more keen to see the Sunday assembly! Not a part of the world with which I am familiar; so I shall continue to read with interest. Keep going!